The United States-Mexican Border's $20-Million Virtual Fence Not Working

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Two months after the Boeing Co. finished their virtual fence along the border Homeland Security is admitting it was a waste of $20 million dollars. The fence has failed to detect illegal immigration as it was meant to do.

The new plan is to add new towers, radars, cameras and computer software along the area where the expensive fence lined the border.

On February 22 Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff accepted the Boeing project after software glitches had been resolved. It took the Government Accountability Office one week to tell Congress that it wasn't up to par.

"did not fully meet user needs and the project's design will not be used as the basis for future"

The project consisted of a mere 28-mile section of the border near Tucson called the Sasabe corridor. With the failure a new plan of 17 towers with communications gear and cameras or radar will be put up. The cost of the new project has yet to be calculated.

The department is also pending millions on a customized computer program that will collect data quickly and fed it to Border Patrol agents.

The Boeing system is still in operation but it has yet to come close to the goals that were expected. Border Patrol agents had very little input on the project that was to be a huge help for them. The final version that is being planned will have more of their ideas and input.

The Boeing fence has been in operation since December resulting in 3,000 apprehensions. That's not anywhere close to the estimated several hundred that are believed to cross the Sasabe corridor each day.

There has many much criticism on the project by politicians and others about the project that was to send a complete picture of the border to Border Patrol agents on their laptops.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano's office hasn't been told of the plans, her press secretary said Tuesday. "It would have been nice of them to say anything to us," spokeswoman Jeanine L'Ecuyer said. "If there have been new plans made regarding the virtual fence, they have not shared that.

"We certainly hope they will, and we've made inquiries to that effect to find out what's going on."

The Mexican border fence is just the first step to combat illegal immigration. When all the fences are completed the United States borders along both Mexico and Canada will have barriers and high tech equipment.

The Boeing Co. has been awarded $860 million to see this project through.

Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said it's encouraging that Boeing will do laboratory tests before the new equipment is deployed, "given the fact that Boeing has already botched it once."